News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-12-29
REVISITING FATHERLAND.
Norwegians Going Home to Spend
Christmas While Work is Slack.
from the N, Y. SUM-


Between 700 and 800 Norwegians,
Swedes, and Danes crowded the dock
yesterday afternoon of the Thingvalla
line, at the foot of Fourth street, Hobo
ken. They came from the far North
west-Minnesota, Dakota, and q few
from as far rs Manitoba and the shores
of Lake Winnipeg. They were clad in
great buffalo, coon skin and bear skin
coats, with fur or knit WOODEN caps pull
ed down over their ears. Many of the
men wore the light-crowned, soft Scotch
cap affected by train brakemen, and they
were, in fact, brakemen on the North
western roads, many Scandinavians hay
ing found employment at that occupa-
ton in their new homes.
The party was an excursion, mid
winter excursion, from the bitter cold of
the Northwest to the bitter cold of north
Europe. There We're, in fact, two eX-
cursions merged in one, and they came
through from Chicago. The price of a
steerage ticket from Chicago to Copen-
hagen and return was fixed by an ar
rangement of the Thingvilla line at the
modest sum of $65. The price of cab
in passage remained the same, 1913. so
each way.
There were among the excursionists a
couple of Norwegian doctors, two edit
ors of Norwegian papers in the North
west, and n dozen or more men who
have accumulated wealth in this coun-
try, but the ma jority of them were farm
ers, farm laborers, woodchoppers from
the great forests of north Wisconsin,
and miners from the mines along the
Of oh of
had been for months back saving money
out of their small earnings for the ex-
cursion home, and to say that they were
happy when tho Hecla, which carries
them over, swung out into the stream
Just as darkness fell and headed off for
the bleak Atlantic, very feebly describes
just how joyful they were
81 wish you beaples in dis country
very habby Christmases, cried one of
them from the deck as the vessel moved
slowly out. "Don't do anything wrong
and you Will pc habby.'
At this grafton there was roar of
laughter, and somebody else CD deck
struck up song in which everybody
who could and who couldn't sing joined,
while surprising fat and ponderous
woman on the dock commenced gravely
waltzing with a little knee-high-to-a-
grasshopper girl.
''Swing yer bardner - cried the ora
tor and humorist from the deck once
more, and then there were more roars
of laughter, and more chatting from deck
to dock and dock to deck again, and all
this time the singing from the deck was
kept up, though the song was broken
up into half dozen different sections,
following each other at irregular inter
walls. 1t was one of the busiest days
ever seen on the dock of the Thingvalla
line. The boat was advertised to sail
at o'clock, but long before noon the
excursionists, loaded down with boxes,
travelling bags, trunks, tin pals, cook
ing utensils and bed clothing, came
swarming in, and from that time to 5!
o'clock, when the steamer actually got
off, there was a pushing, jabberlng,
laughing, good-natured crowd wherever
there was standing room. Comparative
ly few of the travellers were women.
These were mostly servants, tricked out
in the inery of the Northwest American,
and evidently prepared to stun their ma
tive villages with something in the way
of dashing feathers and dazzling cOlOrs
they had never seen before. They were
pale-faced, washedout looking girls for
the greater part, with the blonde hair of
the North on nearly every head. Now
and then, however, there were a pair of
rosy cheeks and bright eyes and the
beauty of vigorous health.
They are great keepers of Christmas,
these Scandinavians, and the journey
was timed to bring them to their old
homes, which few of them had seen in
many years, ON that joyful holiday.
Dealers in tin trumpets, little woolly
toy sheep and toy carts, tools, drums,
and all the cheap Santa Claus outfits,
drove brisk business about the gang
ways, selling things to make glad the
hearts of small ScnndinaEians who viii
very likely be over here and members
of Congress before they die.